Fiscal Impact of Increasing Student-Teacher Ratios
Emmy Partin at Flypaper uses Ohio figures to measure the fiscal impact of increasing class size, but similar savings could be expected elsewhere. Current Ohio law caps class size at 25 kids.
But with the state, which invests about 40 percent of its revenue in K-12 education, looking for ways to plug an $8 billion budget hole, we wondered what the financial impact of increasing student-teacher ratios would be – especially if ratios were increased by just a few students (not the dozens that proponents of small class sizes try to claim). How much money could really be saved? How big would class sizes have to get in order for the state to see a real difference in its bottom line?
Here’s a quick rundown of what we found:
– If every district in the Buckeye State raised its average student-teacher ratio by one student (e.g., from 16:1 to 17:1), there is a potential statewide savings of $276 million in teacher salaries alone.
– If the districts with ratios lower than 20:1 raised theirs to that level, the state could save $458 million in teacher salaries.
– If the districts with ratios lower than 22:1 raised theirs to that level, the state could save $848 million in teacher salaries.
– If every district in the state operated at an average 25:1 student-teacher ratio, the state could save $1.38 billion in teacher salaries alone.
Just making a small increase in the number of students per teacher would give the state, and local districts, real fiscal relief. When you consider the benefits, professional development, and retirement costs that go along with each teacher, the potential savings would be even greater.
Good economic sense, but it’s not a course of action that would cheer the hearts of teaching-job-seekers.
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